Browsing the web is a frustrating experience for many PC/computer users, and is off-putting to those who are unfamiliar with the desktop computing paradigm. Control actions performed with a mouse, keyboard and the conventional Graphical User Interface require considerable manual dexterity, typing skills and a complex cognitive user model. Furthermore, detailed reading and browsing is difficult and tiring on a general purpose computer screen.
One approach to this problem is to design specialised web tablets, PDAs or e-books whose screens are optimised for the presentation and manipulation of both textual and hypertextual material. However, these devices are expensive and still have ease of use problems associated with the performance of control actions and text input on what is essentially an unfamiliar medium. Another approach is to use voice interaction, such as that which might be supported over a telephone link to an Internet browser. This might be effective for certain types of specific information queries, but is unsuitable for less goal-directed browsing of information.
It is a general objective of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus to facilitate activities such as Internet browsing and which mitigates or addresses some or all of the above-noted problems of the prior art.